A Latin-Polish Sermon Collection and the Emergence of Vernacularisation

By (author) Dorota Maslej

Book cover: A Latin-Polish Sermon Collection and the Emergence of Vernacularisation

Extent: 283 pages

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Subjects: Medieval Studies, Religious Studies, Slavic Studies

Series: Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy

Series volume number: 65

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(September 2025)

ISBN: 9782503619279

Price: $100.00

In stock

This analysis of the Old Polish ‘Augustinian Sermons’ highlights the emergence of a vernacular text as well as on the preconditions and dynamics of vernacularisation.


This monograph offers an analysis of the so-called Kazania augustia?skie (‘The Augustinian sermons’), a unique manuscript which represents a very early phase in the vernacularisation of medieval Polish textual culture, when vernacular or bilingual texts started to manifest their independent development. The relationships between Latin and the Polish vernacular in this text, surviving in a contemporary manuscript, sheds light on the ways in which Latin determined the development of written Polish in the textual genre of the sermon. The detailed and multifaceted analysis of the linguistic features of the Kazania augustia?skie contributes to the continuing discussion in medieval studies on the emergence of the earliest texts in the vernacular languages and on the preconditions and dynamics of vernacularisation. At a first glance this book may appear to be the tale of a single manuscript, told solely from the point of view of a historian of language. However, it also explores both the birth of a particular medieval text and, more generally, the growing ability to compose vernacular texts. This capacity, which developed over the medieval period, was based on Latin models; over the centuries it contributed to vernacular texts becoming a fundamental component of European culture.

  • By (author) Dorota Maslej